Tag Archives: Gamma Quadrant

Synopsis: We open on Odo doing what I presume to be his usual late-night hobo-check on the promenade. He finds Morn, everybody’s favorite Space Barfly, sleeping on a bench, and gently shakes him awake to send him home. Morn must still be a little disoriented about what time of day it is, though, because he staggers over to the bar just to make sure it hasn’t magically opened again. But, no such luck, the doors fail to open automatically for him, and he stares mournfully inside at the group of Ferengi engaging in some friendly after-hours cutthroat gambling.

I sort of assume that all games played by Ferengi are cutthroat, like, I wouldn’t want to play Monopoly with these guys. Or would I? Ferengi do seem like the only group of people who could make Monopoly legitimately interesting.

The game they’re playing now seems extremely complicated, featuring dice, a spinning pot of money, and cards (which are round because we’re in SPACE). The Ferengi are playing with absolute concentration and coordination, moving like a cors d’ballet and communicating only in grunts. Suddenly, the spinning apparatus stops, and the Ferengi all look over at the offender who is taking too much time to strategize: Jadzia.

Quark leans over to helpfully remind her that it’s her turn, and she tersely responds that she could think better without his hand on her thigh. Idon’t know how many times I’ve said it: Quark would be an amazing guest star on Mad Men. He could accidentally get himself transported back in time, get stuck there, and tell everyone that he was horribly deformed by some sort of depression-era farming accident, perhaps blackmailing Don and taking on the identity of Dick Whitman, thus ensuring his spot at the ad agency. I’ve given this a lot of thought, but Matthew Weiner refuses to answer any of my letters. Continue reading →

Synopsis:We open in Sisko’s office, where Irishy and Jadzia are showing Sisko some old files they found lurking in the computer. They appear to be of a Cardassian Intelligence nature, dossiers on Bajoran terrorists and the like. Jadzia notes that the encryption on the files was almost comically easy to crack, almost like the Cardassians wanted them found. I agree that it’s pretty suspicious – when I think “Cardassian” pretty much the last thing that comes to mind is “shoddy information security.”

The main concern at the moment is that there’s a whole file on Kira in there, and nobody wants to be the one to tell her about it. “You might want to warn Kira before she sees her file…” Irishy is saying, and right at that moment Kira walks in and says “warn me about what?”

Jadzia, Irishy, and Sisko all get these priceless “oh, shit,” looks on their faces, but Sisko knows his duty, and he’s the Commander of this station, so he tries to tell Kira all casually that there’s a Cardassian intelligence folder about her that she can just read any time she wants. I’m not actually sure what he’s afraid of: if she’ll trample him in excitement or anger.

She manages to avoid either, in part because everybody beats a hasty retreat to let her look at the files in private (that’s right, Sisko fleeshis own office rather than hang out with Kira while she’s working through Cardassian feelings).

Bashir comm badges into Ops to request Sisko’s assistance in one of the airlocks, where Kai Opaka, whom we have not seen since the first episode, has arrived unexpectedly, hopefully with cake. We think one of the great faults of this episode is that it does not show us the scene that must have occurred between Kai Opaka and Bashir in which she showed him pictures of all her cats and gave him some of her cake, and he told her all about medical school and how he was the best one in the class, and she squeezed his ear like she does and was super proud of him and told him to write her once a week. Even not having seen this, we think it’s safe to assume that she and Bashir were chatting and having tea for a good hour and a half before Bashir bothered to call Sisko.

Sisko seems really excited (he must think she has cake too), because he frigging loves Kai Opaka, and he’s rarin’ to give her a tour of the station. Kira comes out of his office trembling with indignation because the Cardassians refused to recognize her brilliance as a terrorist and labeled her a “minor operative.” Poor Kira. Now I’m imagining her terrorist days as some sort of farcical delusion of grandeur, in which she believed herself to be one of the Boondock Saints and everybody else knew that one of the protagonists in Big Trouble. Also, the Cardassian file specifically says that she was limited to “running errands” for terrorist leaders, so now I’m picturing her picking up dry cleaning and making runs to Bajoran Starbucks.